If you plan to follow my blog (you haven’t missed anything yet; this is my inaugural entry) you should probably know right up front that I cherish the notion of being a Sandy Springer. It means something very special to me, as it does to most everyone who is part of the Sandy Spring Friends School community. Like Quakerism in general, there is no dogma and very little doctrine associated with being a Sandy Springer. You don’t have to have been born here and you might even be new to the area; details like that hardly matter. For me, being a Sandy Springer means less about where you are and has to do with a state of mind.
I have noticed that many Sandy Springers have an unusual relationship with heat and humidity. I count myself among them. I grew up down the street in an old farm house between the School and the Ale House. I was nine years old the year the family moved from Lexington Massachusetts to Sandy Spring. That first summer was a bit of a shock. The house had no air conditioning. In my family, the prevailing attitude was that air conditioning was only used when you were terminally ill to help reduce the suffering. The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree. I love the heat, and as far as humidity is concerned, it feels like a hug. Bring it on.
For me, what really distinguishes a Sandy Springer is the unusual manner in which friendliness is combined with the ardent embrace of integrity. The Chronicles of Sandy Spring describe settlers and, later, residents who practiced tolerance, open mindedness, innovation and forward thinking wrapped around a great respect for learning. Sandy Spring is a place where high praise was to be known as “useful”. Quite consistent actually for a community that celebrated simplicity to have such high regard for those who were productive, who somehow found a way to make the world a little better, a little more beautiful, a little friendlier, cozier, more useful.
I have spent the past almost 30 years living in New York, Hong Kong, and Washington, DC, working in finance and investments; I have visited over 70 countries, meeting all kinds of people with all sorts of hopes and challenges. The vast majority of folks are good people, and finding what we all share in common has often been very easy. Occasionally, not so easy. What I can say is that what I have done and what I have learned has been on the back of what I did and learned as a kid growing up in Sandy Spring. So for me, while coming back to Sandy Spring and becoming Head of School was not exactly part of the long-range plan, Way Opened.
I believe Sandy Spring is a very special place and that what we learn here, what we teach here, and what we do here is useful - even transformative. I have been thinking about our School, which will soon turn 50 years old, and about the things that we never want to change and about other things we would like to change and about what better looks like. I’ll be writing more about this as the year progresses.
Tom